


Gunpowder Stars

by runbravelybackward (victorienne)



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, Trickster Gods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-10
Updated: 2013-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-04 05:55:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1077346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/victorienne/pseuds/runbravelybackward
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Dave Strider was two, he encountered a trickster god who started hanging out in Dave's teddy bear. Dave called him John, and in different forms, he's stayed with Dave his whole life. Amid the pranks and godly douchery, the two became best friends. But on Dave's 26th birthday, John's gift to Dave forever changes how they look at each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be done on Dave's birthday, but then there were final papers, so now it is done six days later. I'm shooting for a chapter a week, with the last being ready for Christmas. We'll see.
> 
> Trickster god John also has nothing to do with Homestuck tricksters. Or god tier. Confusingly enough. Think Loki--or Gabriel.
> 
> Bonus: [Fic theme song](http://youtu.be/3u7eH0llrb0) ([+translation](http://lyricstranslate.com/en/alla-luce-del-sole-light-sun.html)) that makes more sense after you've read chapter 1. And then think about it for entirely too long.

Your name is Dave Strider, and your best friend is a nearly omniscient trickster god. You met him when you were two and he started inhabiting your teddy bear, whom you had named John. At the time, you thought your teddy bear had come to life, so you just called the trickster John. The name stuck. He never seemed to register the irony of calling an absurdly powerful ageless being something as generic as John, but it wasn't lost on you.

You're sure he's had more important things to do in the last twenty years than hang out with you, but that hasn't stopped him from doing it anyway. Though sometimes, you could do without the constant presence of a trickster god--like when you double check that you've left the house fully clothed, only to find yourself missing your pants when you arrive at work. Or the time that he stuck all your furniture to the ceiling for 48 hours. Or during college lectures when the professor's powerpoint would suddenly be assaulted by ads for Bro's smuppets. But he's also probably the reason you survived to adulthood at all. You couldn't have lived on just the pizza Bro brought home for you every few days. So from time time he entered your life as your teddy bear, through grade and high school when he moved on to the form of a black-haired, blue-eyed kid who not only showed up in all your classes but was also your invisible best friend when you were at home, in college when he felt you were eating to much ramen and not enough actual food, and even now that you have a job and an apartment since you can't do more for yourself than make microwave dinners, he has cooked a vast majority of the meals you've eaten. Sometimes, it was lobster thermidor. Others, it was authentic Indian food that threatened to burn holes in your weak American intestines. Occasionally, it was just grilled cheese. But other times, he filled your lunchbox with worms or laced pasta with mild laxatives. He never let you forget that his life's entire purpose was being a complete dick.

But as you open your apartment door after coming home from work, the scent that wafts toward you is the innocuous smell of burgers and bacon.

"You remembered," you call out as you take your coat off and put your bag down.

"I know everything--I'm not going to just forget your birthday, Dave."

With some of the "gifts" he's given you over the years, you sometimes wish he did. But at least you always get a triple bacon cheeseburger out of the deal.

You walk into the kitchen to see John tending to four pans of frying bacon and burgers, a pan to each burner--including the one that doesn't actually work. The juicy sizzling makes your mouth water, and John turns to look at you, grinning. You push your shades up into your hair and take a moment to just look at him. You've never really considered yourself heterosexual, but you always unconsciously--and then consciously, when he grew up to be too cute to effectively ignore--made him off-limits to yourself. You tried not to think about how you wanted to run your fingers through his messy black curls, or how you wanted to just look into those deep blue eyes and not even blink to interrupt your grossly romantic gazing, or how you wanted to just hold him against you and feel his weirdly erratic heartbeat.

But trying isn't really working for you right now.

"You ok?" he asks, turning back to the food.

"Just taking in the greasy fumes of all that bacon. I'll just take the grease and bathe in it later. Soak it in."

"Gross, Dave."

"When's dinner going to be ready? I'm fucking starving."

"Geez, you could at least pretend to be grateful. I even made sure they were showing your favorite Christmas movie tonight."

You're briefly excited until you realize that you don't actually have a favorite Christmas movie. "By 'my' favorite, you actually mean _Trapped in Paradise_ , don't you?"

"Yeah! That should be everybody's favorite Christmas movie. Bill is a bank robber with a heart of gold--he even gets the girl in the end. It's a great movie!"

"Nothing involving the Cage is fit for human consumption, but that one the shittiest available. What channel did you fuck with enough to get that put on?"

"All of them."

Your jaw drops as John smiles cheerfully. "Dude, some people watch TV during December for quality family shit. All those kids who wanted to watch Fluffy Marshmallow's First Christmas are going to be scarred for life."

John laughs. "You were swearing by the time you were four. They'll be ok."

"Yeah, but I'm a Strider. Our first words are profanity. No other kids can attain those levels of irony so young."

"Actually, your first word was 'moon.' It sounded more like just 'oon,' though, but it still counts."

You're never sure if you should be comforted or creeped out by the fact that John seems to remember every insignificant thing you've ever done. "Stop trying to distract from the fact that you're about to expose billions of people to the most mentally scarring  
Christmas movie in existence."

"It's a great movie, Dave! Nic Cage plays a bank robber with a heart of gold who comes to realize that--"

"Don't spoil the ending, John. I've only seen it twenty times."

John likes to bullshit about a lot of things, but his level of devotion toward Nic Cage goes way beyond anything you could pretend was supposed to be bullshit. There's no accounting for the taste of several-thousand-year-old assholes.

You lean against the counter and look into the living room as the TV switches itself on. Nic Cage's droning voice plays from the speakers, and you sigh audibly. "Man, why does my birthday gift always have to consist of a bacon cheeseburger and some of your bullshit?"

"Because you like it that way," he says simply.

You're about to open your mouth and disagree, but you realize that, in some weird way, he's right. Sometimes, you get upset that your birthday is often not exactly about what you want to do. But you do always enjoy yourself, in the end. John always seems to know what you need better than you do, even if it seems stupid and douchey at first.

"But don't forget that you still have to pick your present."

He says that like it's even possible to forget. Every year, he offers you anything you want as your birthday gift. Even when you were little, you felt like there was something foreboding about the offer of literally anything you wanted. Over the years, it became almost a game to pick the stupidest, most inane thing you could possibly wish for in an effort to limit the potential for cataclysmic fallout. If there's anything you've learned over the course of your life, it's that trickster gods never do anything without their own ends in mind.

"Yeah, I'm working on it. Cooking up something pretty good this year.

John smiles and extinguishes the burners with a snap of his fingers. "Really? Because last year's was pretty lame."

"That's the point."

"It was lame, even for your lame."

"My lame is fucking awesome."

"You haven't even used any of it!"

"It's fine art, dude." You had requested a lifetime supply of pink unicorn princess rubber duck toilet paper. The quantity that John gave you upfront currently occupies an entire closet of its own. "You gotta wait for the right time to whip out the good shit."

John snickers at your retroactively intended terrible pun. "If you don't use some of it soon, I'm gonna have to wallpaper your apartment with it."

You shrug and pull two plates out of the cabinet. "It's not like you haven't done worse."

"I'll wallpaper the whole apartment building. Including the outside."

Threats of large-scale dickery only barely faze you anymore. "Best fucking use of that toilet paper. Go for it, man," you say, pulling a bun for your burger out of the bag. Your mouth is watering, just thinking about eating that fucking bacon cheeseburger.

By the time you and John are sitting on the couch, ready to eat, you have to physically restrain yourself from just stuffing half of it in your mouth at once. You don't know what kind of weird god-mojo John puts in them, but his triple bacon cheeseburgers are better than sex. And you've had some pretty good sex. John takes advantage of the fact that you're busy stuffing your face to extol the virtues of Bill Firpa, Nic Cage's character, as if he hasn't done this every time you're watching this movie--and many times when you're not.

Eventually, you look up from your plate to see that John is looking at you, amused. "Good?"

You swallow what you're in the midst of chewing. "Hell fucking yes. I don't even want to know what weird shit you do to get stuff to taste this good."

He grins and shrugs. "It's all in the ingredients. You just have to know where to get stuff."

"Ok, stop right there. I don't want to know any more about this burger, or I will never eat your food again."

"You'd probably poison yourself trying to make mac and cheese from a box, Dave."

"Yeah, well whose birthday is it? Not yours, asshole, so shut up."

John's grin widens, and he laughs. You make an attempt to be dignified in the face of his amusement and fail completely by stuffing the entire rest of the burger into your mouth at once.

"Do you really know what you're going to ask for as your birthday gift, or are you just trying to get my hopes up?"

"Nah, dude, this one's pretty rad. I wish--"

You're about to wish for a 24-karat gold-plated, indestructible Easy Bake Oven with an unending ingredient supply that can only make banana-nut muffins--John's least favorite food. But as you look at him, something changes your mind.

"I wish that, for the rest of this movie, whenever I ask you a question, you have to be completely honest and tell me the _whole_ truth. No 'beyond your mortal comprehension' bullshit."

John raises an eyebrow. "When have I ever said that?"

"Never, but you might start, just to be a douchebag."

He makes a face at you but doesn't say any more.

"So you gonna give me my gift now or what?"

"I already did, about ten seconds ago."

"So tell me how ill you think my raps are, dude. I know you act like they're shit, but no one can be that tasteless."

"They're less shitty than they used to be, but they're still pretty bad, Dave."

"Well, fine, fuck you, John. You do like the Cage, so maybe you are the only person in the world who _is_ that tasteless."

Judging from the fact that guilt-ridden Bill Firpa just received a nearly free bus ticket from a kindly, bespectacled woman, you have about an hour left to interrogate the trickster god who is sitting next to you, eating a grease-soaked bacon cheeseburger.

This is going to be awesome.

You start out with some pretty tame questions, but by the time John has finished his burger and grabbed a bag of microwave popcorn (which he pops instantly just by staring at it), you get around to asking something you've been curious about for a while.

"Just how old are you, dude?"

"I don't really know." He offers you the bag which, to all appearances, looks pretty normal.

"You have to have an idea." You take a piece tentatively--he's done this before, but you're never totally sure that anything he gives you won't blow up in your face. Potentially literally.

"About 4,000, I think."

"So you're literally fucking ancient."

"Yeah." John tosses a piece of popcorn up in the air and weaves around, trying to catch it in his mouth as it falls.

You've always, essentially, known approximately how old John is, but then it hits you that you don't even know what happened in 2000 BCE. That wasn't just Roman-Empire-old; that was Stonehenge-old.

"You're literally fucking ancient," you repeat, staring dazedly at the piece of popcorn you're still holding.

John laughs at your bewilderment and pushes your hand up until the popcorn is in your mouth. "Next question?"

After a few moments to decide that you're not going to even try to finish processing what you just realized, you think of something else you've wanted to know. "What's your real name? I'm pretty sure they don't just create omnipotent beings and think, 'Yeah, I'm going to call that fucker John because that's never going to bite me in the ass.'"

He shrugs. "I don't have one. It's kind of different when you just suddenly start existing rather than being born and having a family and stuff. People have called me a lot of different things, though."

"Like what? Are you Loki? Please tell me you're Loki."

"No way! That guy's such a douchebag. He just got to be famous because he did a lot of shit all over the place in Europe. He's not even that cool."

You hold up your hands in mock defense. "Chill. I get it--his pop culture dick is bigger than yours because he's got a comic series and movies and shit. But you still didn't answer my first question, which you know is part of the deal."

Sighing heavily, John offers you the bag of popcorn again. You take some and focus on John, forgetting that there's a terrible movie still going on in the background. "One of the names people had for me was Nanabozho."

"Nana-what?"

"Nanabozho," he replies, carefully pronouncing each syllable in an accent you don't recognize. "Well, sort of. That's the name most people use, if they don't speak Ojibwe."

You raise your eyebrows in confusion. "I understood maybe 20% of that."

"I helped a few Ojibwe clans with some stuff, before people knowing I was a god was a weird thing. They knew I was a trickster and gave me that name. They even told stories about me and gave me a family. I was the kid of the West Wind and a human woman--isn't that awesome?" Something vaguely registers in your brain--recalled from some class, probably in your freshman year of college--about the Ojibwe being a big group of native North American tribes. "I've done a lot of other stuff, too, but they were really cool."

You look at him carefully, subconsciously trying to make sure this is the same John you've known your whole life. He's never hidden anything from you, but never really _got_ all of who he was and what he had done. But he's just sitting there, smiling wistfully as he resumes his popcorn tossing. He's the same old John--bright blue eyes, crooked nose, goofy teeth, and all--but somehow, he isn't exactly the same.

"What other stuff have you done?" you ask, still attempting to wrap your head around all this new information--but you're not going to let these last few minutes go to waste.

John's smile fades, and he briefly stops dicking around with the popcorn. "I've done a lot of stuff, Dave. And since you said I had to be completely honest about it, I'd have to list 4,000 years' worth of stuff. You should probably rephrase your question, or you'll be eighty before I'm done."

Fair point. "Ok, what was your latest big trickster thing? Your usual bullshit like stopping all the hot water from getting to the apartment when I'm trying to take a fucking shower doesn't count."

His mouth half-open, John freezes, looking like he's mentally searching for something. "Wait, the movie's almost over, Dave. We have to watch the ending--that's the best part!"

There's something very off about the way he's acting. He'd have to think you're an idiot to believe you didn't realize that the whole deal ends when the movie's over. "It still counts for the no-bullshit rule. You don't get out of my birthday gift just because you want to pretend you're Sarah while Nic Cage is making out with her."

John smacks your arm, eyes still glued to the TV. "I do not! And yeah, I know."

For the last ten minutes of the movie, John is talkative and animated. Too animated. He's always overly excited when he's watching a Cage flick, but you can tell he's faking it--and not very well. You have no idea what he's going to tell you, and your stomach is crunching itself into knots--though the triple bacon cheeseburger probably has something to do with that, too.

Once the credits start, you can tell John's feigned excitement is close to running out. About thirty seconds later, he stops talking altogether. Then, when the credits are done, he takes a deep breath, and the channel shifts to showing a breaking news report: Tragic Avalance Kills Fourteen. You look at him expectantly, and he just keeps staring at the TV and starts throwing popcorn into his mouth again.

"That one needed more of a push than usual." 

Your blood runs cold, and you sit there, frozen, for a moment while you try to process what John just said. "You did that?" you ask, your voice barely audible.

"Yeah," he responds, in between popcorn tosses. "The snow just didn't want to move like it--"

"You killed all those people?"

John stops throwing popcorn and looks at you in confusion. "The avalanche did."

"But if you hadn't started it, they would all still be alive?"

He shrugs. "Yep."

As you look at him, you're sure the horror is written all over your face. Your best friend, who had always been with you, always kept you safe, killed over a dozen people. You always knew that tricksters aren't particularly peaceful figures, but you thought that John was different. But even if he wasn't, you expected him to at least show some kind of regret. But you don't know if you've ever seen him so completely without emotion. You look at him intently, trying to find the John you know in him. But even though the black curls and ridiculous glasses are there, you're not sure you can see _John_ anymore.

"Dave?" Concern and confusion start to creep into his expression, and he reaches out toward you.

You immediately jerk away, and his look of shock would have stabbed you through the heart if your sympathy for him hadn't already drained out of you.

"You don't see the big picture, Dave. It looks bad now, but this is going to lead to advances in all kinds of stuff. People will--"

"So if the 'big picture' said killing me off means some douchebag would cure the common cold, you would do it? No second thoughts, no remorse or anything? Just, 'Yeah, I had to kill off some asshole who thought I was his friend, but what does he actually mean after 4,000 years of god-shit. Killing him off's no big deal because no one ever has to sneeze again'?"

John looks completely crushed. "You _are_ my friend, Dave," he says quietly. "I wouldn't do that."

"Really." Your voice is dripping with sarcasm, and John looks like he's almost cowering from your tirade. "What makes me so special that your 'big picture' isn't such a big fucking deal?"

"I--" His mouth stayed open, like he was trying to choke out the words. "I love you."

You can see him start to tear up, and it brings a lump to your throat. But you don't believe any of it. The movie's over, so the whole truth deal is over. There's nothing keeping him from lying through his teeth to you. You grit your teeth and just keep going. "You don't have a fucking clue what love is, you bag of immortal dicks. You're not my friend, and I know you don't 'love' me. I don't even know you, dude. You've been around my whole life, but there are thousands of years of shit I don't know about you. Who knows how many stupid assholes you've killed for your 'big picture' bullshit. That picture's probably just some four-year-old's macaroni art that you're making out to be a fucking Rembrandt, anyway. You don't have to knock all the other pictures off the fridge and frame it in solid gold like some proud PTA douchebag when their kid comes home from summer camp with some fucking 'art.' And even if it is a Rembrandt, you don't get to be a fucking dick about it." That metaphor ran away from you about three words in, but you're long past the point of caring. "Just get out. I don't want some dickbag deity in my apartment eating all my damn popcorn."

Tears are streaming down his cheeks, and he's looking at you like you just shattered his heart. Suddenly, you realize that you've genuinely hurt him. Badly. But now that you've got this momentum, you can't just stop. "Dave, just let--"

"No. Get the fuck out."

John closes his eyes and presses a hand to his mouth in an attempt to stifle a sob. It doesn't really work, and you wince at his pain like it was your own, physical wound. But after a moment, he looks up at you, trying to force a calmer expression.

"Bye, Dave."

And then he vanishes, leaving nothing behind but that fucking empty popcorn bag.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter turned out kind of differently than expected... It gets kind of NSFW, but not the full NSFW.

After John leaves, you just sit there for a while, consumed by some indescribable mix of emotions. As the adrenaline high wears off, the weight of what you've done begins to press upon your shoulders. You actually told him to get out and implied that he should never come back. But you're not sure who, exactly, "he" was. He didn't really seem like John--not _your_ John. How could _your_ John have killed those people--and who knows how many more, over 4,000 years?

Running on automatic, you stand up and dump the dishes in the sink, your mind still frozen. You realize you picked up the empty bag of microwave popcorn, too, and you stand there in front of the garbage can, staring at it. You know you have to throw it out, but you just can't bring yourself to. But something possesses you to just tear it in half. And from there, you start ripping it to pieces. But it doesn't give you the satisfaction it should. All you can see is his face-- _John's_ face--twisted in the pain you inflicted, tears streaming down his cheeks.

You berated a god. That should make you feel somehow powerful and courageous. But it doesn't. You feel sick and dirty and torn apart. Like you're only part of the person you were before.

It dawns on you that, from your somewhat sketchy knowledge of mythology, you've never heard of any god letting some shit like that slide. Some of them would work for years to destroy their detractors' lives. But somehow, that doesn't really scare you. No matter how unfamiliar he might seem right now, you can't even conceive of John wanting to hurt you.

But you didn't really want to hurt him, either. It wasn't really the deaths that scared you. You could be a big-picture kind of guy. You knew gods worked on a much bigger scale and that the change and evolution trickster gods drove was usually too hard for humans to get moving without a shove. The fact that his actions had killed people was disturbing, but what really hurt was that he never gave you the chance to understand. Like you didn't mean any more to him than any of those people he just unfeelingly offed. You know the thought that you could possibly be important to a powerful immortal being is selfish and naïve, but you can't help but want it.

You toss the shredded remains of the popcorn bag into the trash and head to your room. You barely restrain yourself from faceplanting into your pillow and just texting everyone you know that you're done with absolutely everything until further notice. They can just pile the work on your desk, and you'll get to it in maybe three months or so. If you ever feel like moving again.

You take a deep breath and realize that you're still shaking slightly. You walk over to your desk to steady yourself against it and pretend everything is ok, but when you look up, you see John. Not the John who just dramatically exited your apartment and your life, but the original John--your teddy bear. On his stomach was a patch, embroidered with the word "Open!" John--the other John--had done that in time for your 19th birthday and had repeatedly bugged you to lift it up to see what was apparently stuffed inside your teddy bear's chest. But you knew better than to just open something he told you to, since it would probably give you a heart attack. So seven years later, you still don't know what he put inside it.

You reach out to pick it up, telling yourself that you're going to put it somewhere you can't see it. But you can't bring yourself to put it down. You miss John, and this is all you have left. Even if a bunch of smuppets launch out of the thing, it would still be a better reminder of John than your guilt is, so you cautiously pull the flap aside, bracing yourself. But nothing pops out. Instead, there's a folded-up piece of paper amid the bear's stuffing. You pull it out and open it up to see John's scribbled writing.

_happy birthday, dave! i know i probably already gave you your present, but this isn't really a present anyway. i guess i should just tell you all this stuff, but doing this is way easier. i haven't told any other humans about everything I've done, but it feels weird that i know everything about you and you don't know much about me. i don't know if you'll want to even talk to me again after this, but i think i should tell you everything since you're my best friend, even though you're a loser. sorry i didn't tell you before._

The note ends there, and you're about to turn it over to see if there's something written on the back when unfamiliar memories commandeer your vision.

You see ancient armies laid to waste, cities leveled, innocents killed--even some famous disasters like the eruption of Vesuvius that wiped out Pompeii and Herculaneum. But after each one, you see, too, what resulted: the terror and grief, but also the compassion and the drive to never let it happen again. And as time went on, the pain was forgotten, but the changes were not--new freedom, new science, new ideas. The events slowly worked their way up to the present and ran out. You expected it to be over after that, but instead, it moves on to another collection of memories.

These seem to be out of order and unconnected, until you realize that they're things John is proud of doing: helping early humans learn how the world works, whether by appearing to them or subtly nudging them in the right direction; coaxing people toward new discoveries and inventions. Finally, you see some scenes you recognize as being from his time as Nanabozho. You assume those will be the last--the ones he's most proud of. But after those end, another memory comes into focus.

It's nighttime in a field, and as you adjust to the darkness, you can see the silhouette of buildings in the distance--clearly Chinese, likely from before the second millennium, though it's hard to tell without looking at them up close. But in the field, you see only one person, whom you can tell isn't John, but you can sense that John is present somehow. The figure is too distant to see exactly, but you can hear them shuffling around with something. After a few moments, you see a small flame ignite, and the person steps back. Then, something starts to spark, the trail of stars launching it into the sky where it bursts into light and color. Smoke and the smell of gunpowder reach you as the firework--evidently, the first firework--fades from view.

As the vision fades with it, your mind is left reeling with all that you've learned. He did tell you. He did want you to understand. You just didn't listen. The fact that he was always afraid that, once you knew him, you would reject him might have been subtle to anyone else, but to you, nothing could have been clearer. Because you _do_ know him. Suddenly, you recall what he said before he left--that he loved you. You close your eyes tightly, trying to keep yourself from crying. You don't know why you didn't just listen to him when he told you look at this before. Things could have been so different--John would still be there, and you could just go to him and tell him you understood. But now, all you have left is guilt that you turned away the only person who's ever really been there for you.

\---

A week goes by. You've brought yourself to go to work and do all the things you normally do, trying not to think about John. You haven't let yourself cry, and you've eaten out for every meal so you don't have to even look at the kitchen. You've been telling yourself that you're not worried about him--that you're not worried about yourself without him. But for as much as you've lied to yourself before, this time, it's just not working. The image of John's face before he left has burned itself into your memory, and every time you think of it, it feels like someone's pulling your heart out of your chest.

One day, you're eating lunch at your desk when a coworker who seems to think the two of you are bros comes over and begins attempting to talk to you.

"Girl problems?"

You grunt noncommittally, hoping he'll take a hint and leave you alone.

"Yeah, I hear you."

Apparently, he didn't, actually.

"The missus and I had some issues a while back. I said some stupid things, and she almost ended things. But I asked her to give me one more chance to make it up to her. So I brought her to the park where we had our first date--it was a good memory for her, you know?--and we-"

"You're a fucking genius." You shove the scraps of your lunch into the trash and head to your boss' office to tell him that you're violently ill and have to go home. You hope he buys it, since you're going to be leaving regardless--you've got important shit to do.

\---

Several hours later, you're in the car, driving out into the middle of nowhere with a trunk full of all kinds of shit. You're hoping against hope that, even after everything you said, John will still be listening to you. By the time you've reached the parking lot near the empty strip mall you had in mind, your heart is racing with the fear you'll be leaving feeling even more alone than when you arrived. You're out in the middle of nowhere, so far from the city that you can see the stars clearly. The silence is strange, but it feels expectant. And now that you've bought all this shit and dragged it out here, you're not about to let your nerves stop you from doing what you know you need to.

You lay out the fireworks--the largest you could legally obtain without a license--and eye them skeptically. The guy in the fireworks store had shown you how to handle them, but it all still seems sketchier than you had imagined when your coworker unintentionally gave you the idea.

You start small, with the sparklers, and realize belatedly that you look like a fucking idiot waving around four sparklers at a time like an 8-year-old. But you grit your teeth and try to ignore it. Getting John down here so you can at least apologize for being such a fuck-up is more important than your ego.

By the time you've burned through all the sparklers, you're half frozen, and John hasn't shown. You're not really surprised, but you're not willing to give up, either. Besides, all the fireworks you bought were way over your allotted yearly combustibles budget of exactly zero dollars, so you may as well use them.

Just as you're about to start in on the actual fireworks, your trusty cheapo lighter gives out. You swear and sigh heavily before trudging off to your car to get the spare from your glove compartment, being sure to check that it still worked in frigid northern temperatures before heading back to set off the fireworks.

But they're gone. Every single firework you bought is gone. You hear a running footsteps headed away from you, and without even thinking, you start to take off in the direction they're coming from. For several blocks, you race after a shadowed figure, even after you realize that, even with your legendary Strider speed, his head start was too much for you to possibly catch up. Eventually, you see the figure round a corner far up ahead. But by the time you reach it, there's no sign of the figure or where they went. You try to make yourself follow after them, in hopes you'll get some hint of where they went, but your legs crumple under you. Your body accepts defeat before your mind does, leaving you to sink to your knees.

Everything is gone. You've lost your last chance to see John again. You were sure a large quantity of colorful explosives would at least get you somewhere. But now, all your fireworks are gone, you're probably about a mile from your car, you can't bring yourself to move, and for the first time in your life, you feel truly alone. You feel tears of frustration and self-directed anger streaming down your cheeks as you gasp for freezing breaths. Your head is spinning, and as your close your eyes, you feel yourself tilt sideways until you're lying down, curled up, on the cold sidewalk.

But it doesn't feel cold or hard like it should. It feels comfortable and safe and smells like something familiar.

You're home, on your couch, and someone is stroking your hair gently. It seems likely that you're freezing to death and that this is all just a final hallucination of comfort. But when you open your eyes, you don't see the unfamiliar street--you see something blurry, too close-up to focus on. You blink and turn your head to see deep blue eyes looking down at you, full of too many emotions to pin down.

"John..." Your voice is still muted by your cold, dry throat, but you keep talking. "You're not real. You wouldn't come back."

"Why wouldn't I?" he asks quietly, still running his fingers through your hair.

"Because I fucked it up, dude. I didn't get it, and I just kept saying shit that didn't make sense. I took the best thing that ever happened to me, and I fucked it all the way up."

He's quiet for a few moments, and you continue lying there, looking up at him, wishing you weren't probably seconds from death, hallucinating. "I'm the best thing that ever happened to you?"

"Hell yeah. You deserved way better than me flipping my shit the first time something weird happened just because I wanted to feel like I was important to you. But I guess I was important, and I fucked up, and I'm sorry."

"I should have told you everything myself, so I kind of fucked up, too. I'm sorry, Dave."

"I should have trusted you to begin with. It's not like you ever let me down before. I don't know why I suddenly thought you'd start."

John raises an eyebrow as he looks down at you. "Wait, Dave--this isn't really like you. Do you actually think you're dying?"

"Yeah, obviously. Why else would you be here?"

"Because I zapped you back to your apartment since you were just lying out in the street! I wasn't going to let you freeze to death!"

You close your eyes and put a hand on your forehead, trying to force your brain to run on all cylinders. "You stole my fucking fireworks, didn't you?"

"You probably would have blown yourself up if I didn't. That was my whole job with the first ones--make sure the guy didn't accidentally set himself on fire. He did pretty well on his own, but there were a few close calls."

You sit up straight and turn to face John. "Those cost a shitload of money, and you almost gave me a fucking stroke, you asshole."

John laughs. "There's the real Dave! I still have the fireworks, though. I can turn them to solid gold, if you want, so money's not really a big deal."

You smack John's shoulder. "The money's not even the issue here. I thought I lost..." You can't bring yourself to say it, now that you're coming to accept that this is reality. "Wait, didn't you know this would happen? Since you're all omniscient and shit?"

He shakes his head. "I don't know my own future. And whenever it came time for me to tell humans I became friends with what I actually did, I always ran away instead. You're the only person I've ever wanted to know about everything, but I didn't want to have to face you if you couldn't accept it. So I still kind of ran away. Sorry I didn't trust you."

You're not sure what kind of John you were hoping to get back with that trunkload of fireworks, but now you know that this is the only one who could have come back: _your_ John. There was never really any other John. This John is powerful and vulnerable and kind--and definitely still a douchebag. But more than knowing that he's yours, you realize that you're his, too. That you always were.

You bring your hand up to rest your palm against his cheek, and warmth floods into your body as he looks at you in surprise. Tilting your head slightly, you lean in and close your eyes as you press your lips to his. For a moment, John stiffens, and you're about to back off. But then you feel his arms wrap around your shoulders and pull you in closer as he starts to kiss you back. You raise your free hand to tangle your fingers in his soft curls while your hand on his cheek drifts down to rest against his chest.

After a minute, he pulls back slightly and rests his forehead against yours. You can feel his slightly uneven breathing as you look each other in the eye, almost too close to focus.

"I love you, Dave. You're the only person I've felt this way about. I thought I had loved people before, but not like this."

You close your eyes and can't hold back a small smile. Not that you tried very hard. "I love you, too, you asshole."

John grins and winks at you before pressing forward, pushing you down onto the couch and kissing you harder. You bring your arm around his shoulders to pull him down against you and curl your fingers tightly into his hair. After one particularly impassioned kiss, you accidentally pull his hair, and you're about to stop to apologize when he lets out a soft groan that goes straight to your dick. You make a mental note and, a few minutes later, do it again, hoping he won't realize you're doing it on purpose.

But he immediately pulls away, and you panic, letting go of him, worried that you've spooked him like he's some kind of small animal. But the way he looks down at you says exactly the contrary. He reaches around to grab your wrists and pins them to the couch above your head, and you bite your lip to stop yourself from moaning. That, alone, seems to be enough proof to John that he's doing something right, and he smiles down at you, looking rather self-satisfied. He's about to lean down to kiss you again, and you move upward to meet him, but then he stops. He proceeds to get off the couch entirely, leaving you to let a long breath out between your teeth in frustration.

"Wait here," he says. "I have a better idea."

Oh, shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~Part 3 will probably be out after Christmas--busy week ahead.~~ No chapter 3 coming, sorry guys.


End file.
